But where are the few intellectuelles? Lost between the lace and the teacups. They look almost ashamed of being seen there at all. They have real knowledge, and to meet them is like opening the chapter of a valuable Encyclopedia; but hardly has one taken in the discovery, when one is pushed along to find the conclusion of the chapter somewhere in the crowd, if indeed it can be found.
As you know, since our arrival from Nice we have not had one free evening. The Grandes Dames of France wanted to get a closer view of two Turkish women, and they have all been charming to us, especially the elder ones.
Yes, charming is the word which best applies to all these society ladies, young and old, and is not to be charming the modern ideal of civilisation? These women are all physically the model of a big Paris dressmaker, and morally what society allows them to be—some one quite inoffensive. But it is not their fault that they have all been formed on the same pattern, and that those who have originality hide it under the same exterior as the others, fearful lest such a blemish should even be suspected!
But really, am I not a little pedantic? How can I dare to come to such a conclusion after a visit which lasts barely a quarter of an hour?
At luncheon and dinner the favourite topics of conversation are the pieces played at the theatres or the newest books. Marriage, too, is always an interesting subject, and everyone seems eager to get married in spite of the thousand and one living examples there are to warn others of what it really is. This supreme trust in a benign Fate amuses me. Every bride-elect imagines it is she who will be the one exception to the general rule. Turkish women do not look forward to matrimony with the same confidence.
Divorce has a morbid fascination for the men and women here: so have other people’s misfortunes. And as soon as a man or woman is down—a woman particularly—everyone delights in giving his or her contribution to the moral kicking.
I must own, too, I cannot become enthusiastic about Mdlle. Cecile Sorel’s clothes nor the grace of a certain Russian dancer. What I would like to talk about would be some subject which could help us two peoples to understand each other better, but such subjects are carefully avoided as tiresome.
Do you remember how anxious we were to hear Strauss’s Salome discussed, and what it was in all this work which interested these Paris Society ladies?—nothing more nor less than whether it was Trohohanova or Zambelli who was to dance the part of Salome.
That was a disappointment for me! All my life I looked forward to being in a town where music was given the place of honour, for in Constantinople, as you know, there is music for everyone except the Turkish woman.
I had no particular desire to see the monuments of Paris, and now I have visited them my affection for them is only lukewarm. The Philistine I am! I wish I dared tell the Parisians what I really thought of them and their beautiful Paris! I had come above all things to educate myself in music, and now I find that they, with their unbounded opportunities, have shamefully failed to avail themselves of what to me, as a Turkish woman, is the great chance of a lifetime.